Description
The Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund: Recovery Land Acquisition Grant Program provides funding to support the development and implementation of conservation programs for listed species. The program aims to promote State and Federal cooperation in listed species conservation by leveraging funds to acquire specific parcels of land, through fee simple or conservation easement, in support of Service-approved recovery plans and outlines. Eligible applicants include State agencies that have entered into a Cooperative Agreement pursuant to Section 6(c) of the ESA and have provided the information necessary for the annual renewal of their Cooperative Agreement.
Key aspects of the program include:
• Land acquisition is often the most effective and immediate means of protecting habitat, particularly in areas where development or land uses inconsistent with species recovery threaten to destroy, modify, or curtail key habitat attributes.
• Applications must support at least one listed species’ most recent Service-approved recovery planning document, in which habitat loss is identified as a threat and habitat protection is identified as a priority recovery action.
• The specific parcel(s) of land proposed for acquisition with grant funds, or as non-Federal cost share, must be identified and sufficiently described to facilitate merit review based on the evaluation criteria.
• A property may not be submitted for funding consideration under both the Recovery Land Acquisition Grant Program and the Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) Land Acquisition Grant Program in the same fiscal year.